Cell mechanical properties are a broad measure of cell viability that can be quantified experimentally by measuring the cell deformability. A convenient model system for studying the interplay between cell health and cell physical characteristics is the human erythrocyte, or red blood cell (RBC). It is known that the deformability of a RBC is decreased in a number of diseases including sickle cell anemia, malaria, and diabetes.
Available techniques measure RBC deformability at either the bulk or individual cell level. Bulk testing has the advantage of being high-throughput, but provides only an averaged population deformability that can mask the presence of small populations of diseased cells. To contrast, individual cell measurements provide information on single cells, but are extremely low-throughput in nature. Currently, there is no high-throughput method to investigate the mechanical properties of populations of individual cells.